BLANC, MONT, the highest mountain in Europe, 15,780 ft., almost entirely within France; sends numerous glaciers down its slopes, the Mer de Glace the chief.

BLANCHARD, FRANCOIS, a celebrated French aeronaut, inventor of the parachute; he fell from his balloon and was killed at the Hague (1738-1809).

BLANCHARD, LAMAN, a prolific periodical and play writer, born at Yarmouth; a man of a singularly buoyant spirit, crushed by calamities; died by suicide (1803-1845).

BLANCHE OF CASTILE, wife of Louis VIII. of France and mother of St. Louis; regent of France during the minority of her son and during his absence in crusade; governed with great discretion and firmness; died of grief over the long absence of her son and his rumoured intention to stay in the Holy Land (1186-1252).

BLANCHET, THE ABBE, French litterateur; author of “Apologues and Tales,” much esteemed (1707-1784).

BLANDRATA, GIORGIO, Piedmontese physician, who for his religious opinions was compelled to take refuge, first in Poland, then in Transylvania, where he sowed the seeds of Unitarianism (1515-1590).

BLANQUI, ADOLPHE, a celebrated French publicist and economist, born at Nice; a disciple of J. B. Say, and a free-trader; his principal work, “History of Political Economy in Europe” (1798-1854).

BLANQUI, LOUIS AUGUSTE, a brother of the preceding, a French republican of extreme views and violent procedure; would appear to have posed as a martyr; spent nearly half his life in prison (1805-1881).

BLARNEY-STONE, a stone in Castle Blarney, Cork, of difficult access, which is said to endow whoso kisses it with a fair-spoken tongue, hence the application of the word.

BLASIUS, ST., bishop of Sebaste, in Armenia; the patron of wool-combers; suffered martyrdom in 316.

BLASPHEMY, defined by Ruskin as the opposite of euphemy, and as wishing ill to anything, culminating in wishing ill to God, as the height of “ill-manners.”

BLATANT BEAST, Spenser’s name for the ignorant, slanderous, clamour of the mob.

BLAVATSKY, MME., a theosophist, born in Russia; a great authority on theosophy, the doctrines of which she professed she derived from the fountain-head in Thibet (1813-1891).

BLEEK, FRIEDRICH, eminent German Biblical exegete and critic of the Schleiermacher school, born in Holstein; professor at Bonn; his chief work, “Commentary on the Hebrews,” a great work; others are Introductions to the Old and to the New Testaments (1793-1859).

BLEEK, WM., son of preceding, a philologist; accompanied Colenso to Natal; author of “Comparative Grammar of the S. African Languages” (1827-1875).

BLEFUSCU, an island separated from Lilliput by a strait 800 yards wide, inhabited by pigmies; understood to represent France.

BLENHEIM, a village in Bavaria, near Augsburg; famous for
Marlborough’s victory in 1704, and giving name to it.